The present invention relates to the manufacture of integrated circuit devices, and more specifically, to the formation of epitaxial material regions between gate stacks within transistor integrated circuits.
Modern integrated circuit devices utilize various solid-state elements such as transistors. Generally, transistors (such as field effect transistors (FET)) include a semiconductor channel region between conductive source and drain regions. The semiconductor channel region in an FET is changed from non-conducting state to a conducting state based on the presence of a voltage field generated by the gate conductor. Similarly, diodes utilize semiconductor regions to control current flow between the anode and the cathode and, in the same way, bipolar junction transistors control current flow based upon the semiconductor nature of the collector, emitter, and base.
One recent advance within integrated circuit technology is the use of epitaxial silicon carbon source/drain regions adjacent the semiconductor channel regions. Such epitaxial material regions provide a greater mechanical stress which increases carrier mobility and transistor drive current for such integrated circuit devices. However, it is often difficult to form epitaxial material regions that are free of defects and that have a consistent lattice network.